For those of you who will be absent tomorrow, here is a brief overview of how we will spend our day.

LANGUAGE ARTS:

In the morning, we will check our Wordly Wise homework, parts C & D.  I will also help the students prepare for part E. (Uh, oh!)  We will read the story together and then follow these somewhat complicated directions.

Since part E is meant to be challenging, most of the responses to the questions are meant to be answered using a vocabulary word from the lesson we've been studying.  Each of the 15 Wordly Wise vocabulary words should be used only once throughout part  E.  Also, if you see a vocabulary word used in any of the questions, no vocabulary word is necessary in the respective answer.  This is hard for the children to grasp, so here is how I will help them. 

1.  Use a yellow highlighter to highlight every vocabulary word (marked in bold) that you find written in the questions.  This week, you will find these words to highlight:  

2. Now, go back to the story about Sequoya and highlight these same words located in the paragraphs in yellow.

3.  There now should be some vocabulary words remaining in the story that are in bold print, but not highlighted. 

4.  Highlight these words in a different color.

5. These remaining vocabulary words will be utilized in the answers to questions # 3,4,6,8,10,11, and 13.

I know this is confusing, but I will help the children out by providing them with a document they can answer all of part E on.  They will not need to answer the questions in the book, but rather on the document located here.

READING:  

I will also spend some time introducing the fluency rubric they will be expected to follow for their Poetry Project. (Click here to see it.)   The students have selected their poems to recite and will be working on their artwork to complement their poems as well.  The children will be given the choice of creating their artwork on Kid Pix or Kerpoof, or they may hand draw their art if they prefer.  Kerpoof is a new Web 2.0 program they will need to learn how to use.  You can find the link to Kerpoof here (near the top part of the page). Students will need a username and password that I can email you individually if your child would like to try it at home.  Directions for Kerpoof can be located here. The children are already familiar with Kid Pix, but they won't be able to access the program at home.  Our biggest challenge is to get the students to save their work in the appropriate folder.  :)

MATH:

We will be talking about probability.  Please view the slides from the lesson below:

We will complete pages 10 and 11 in the Student Math Journal, too.

SCIENCE:
We will be reading from our Sea Monsters book in small groups and practicing taking notes using "caveman speak".  We might have time to start illustrating in our flipbooks as well.

Please read over pages 30-34 if you have selected the Giant Squid to research.  Read over pages 38-43 if you have selected the Octopus to research.

ROTATION:
During rotation this is what the students will work on:
Small Group Instruction:  Taking notes on the Sea Monster creatures
Seatwork: Beginning your poem artwork (hand-drawn, Kid Pix, or KerPoof)
DEAR time:  Read, read, read!

This just about summarizes our day.  You will miss visiting Mr. Shane, Mrs. Hershman, and Senora Maldonado.  I'm sure they'll help you catch up where necessary.

We will miss you!